UN TO TURN OVER ITS MISSION IN DANUBE REGION

( Editorial: --> 8090 ) ZAGREB, 13 Oct (Hina)- The UN Police Support Group (UNPSG) will complete its nine month-long mandate in the Danube region on Thursday, 15 October, which will mark the definite departure of the UN from the Croatian Danube region. The UN's role there will be taken over by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The international community will keep using the OSCE and the UN to cement the past achievements in the return programme and in Croatia's reconstruction and economic development, the representative of the UN Liaison Office and UNPSG Kirsten Haupt told Hina. UNPSG's role has been to assist in the return of DPs and refugees and guarantee security in an that area, where the Interior Ministry had established a police force reflecting the ethnic composition of the Danube region. The future OSCE police force in the Danube region will consist of 120 policemen, whose rules of conduct and the approach to the local police will not differ from that of the UNPSG, Haupt remarked. Speaking about the UNPSG's mission, its representative described its cooperation with the local police as mostly good. "The state of security in the Danube region is now much better than in many other Croatian areas", she said. Members of UNPSG have been present in all police stations in the Danube region, where they monitored the work of local police, especially during incidents. Incidents have been happening, but their frequency has gradually dropped from 60-70 per week to only 20-30 per week, Haupt said. Most incidents were prompted by real-estate disputes, but there have also ethnic incidents between the Serbs and the Croats. In cases when local police did not react to ethnic incidents timely and appropriately and in individual cases when they took part in them, UNPSG monitored reactions by high police officials, UNPSG representative said, adding that the reactions had been positive. Croatia still hosts a UN mission on Prevlaka, a peninsula bordering with Yugoslavia. The mission consist of 28 military observers whose next report will be received by the UN Secretary General on 15 October, she said. Other forms of the UN presence in Croatia will be, first and foremost, UNHCR, the UN's umbrella organisation for assistance in the return of refugees and DPs, as well as UNLO, UNICEF and the UN Center for Human rights. (Hina) mr 132041 MET oct 98